95 Best Books On Indian History

On February 16, 2025 By newsroom Topic: Best Books

Indian history, aka, something many Indians don't take / like a lesson from.  

 

The list was compiled based on votes from the Goodreads community.
India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha
The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru
India’s Struggle for Independence by Bipan Chandra
The Story of My Experiments With Truth by Mahatma Gandhi
The Wonder That Was India: A Survey of the History and Culture of the Indian Sub-Continent before the coming of the Muslims by Arthur Llewellyn Basham
Medieval India: From Sultanat To The Mughals 1526–1748 by Satish Chandra
India: A History by John Keay
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple
Medieval India — From Sultanat to the Mughals — Part One — Delhi Sultanat (1206–1526) by Satish Chandra
Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 by Romila Thapar
The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline by Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi
The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple
India After Independence by Bipan Chandra
Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi by Katherine Frank
A History of India
Ancient India: in Historical Outline by D.N. Jha
India’s Struggle for Independence by Bipan Chandra
An Autobiography: Toward Freedom by Jawaharlal Nehru
Dominance Without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India by Ranajit Guha
Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India’s Geography by Sanjeev Sanyal
Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History by Romila Thapar
Alberuni’s India by أبو الريحان البيروني
A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India : From the Stone Age to the 12th Century by Upinder Singh
Jai Somnath by Kanhaiyalal Maniklal Munshi (કનૈયાલાલ માણેકલાલ મુનશી)
Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits by Rahul Pandita
A New Look At Modern Indian History: Men Of Destiny by B.L. Grover
Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas by Romila Thapar
Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins
Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India by Lawrence James
Medieval Indian Society And Culture (Advanced Study In The History Of Medieval India
The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life
Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India by Ranajit Guha
India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking by Anand Giridharadas
The Mughal Throne by Abraham Eraly
The Story of India by Michael Wood
The Illustrated History Of South India by K.A. Nilakanta Sastri
Siamese White by Maurice Collis
Jahanara: Princess of Princesses by Kathryn Lasky
The Peacemakers: India and the Quest for One World by Manu Bhagavan
The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556–1707 by Irfan Habib
The Lives of the Mughal Emperors by John Reeve
Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule by Mahatma Gandhi
Private Life of the Mughals of India by R. Nath
Untouchables: My Family’s Triumphant Journey Out of the Caste System in Modern India by Narendra Jadhav
Economic History Of Medieval India: A Survey by Irfan Habib
Early Medieval Indian Society: A Study in Feudalisation by R.S. Sharma
Our Bones Are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres and The Indian Mutiny Of 1857 by Andrew Ward
Atlas of the Mughal Empire by Irfan Habib
Early Records Of British India by James Talboys Wheeler
Ancient India: New Research by Upinder Singh
Wonder That Was India
Modern India
Hind Swaraj and Other Writings by Mahatma Gandhi
Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World by Mike Davis
India Since Independence by Bipan Chandra
The Guardians of Karma by M. Vizhakat
The Secret History of Iran by Hamad Subani
Divine Akbar and Holy India by Farzana Moon
Heaven’s Command: An Imperial Progress (The Pax Britannica Trilogy
Anu: The Raj Years by Shabnam Vasisht
Sikkim: Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom by Andrew Duff
Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition by Nisid Hajari
Freedom movement and Indian Muslims by Santimoy Roy
City of Victory: The Rise and Fall of Vijayanagara by Ratnakar Sadasyula
Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition by B.R. Ambedkar
A Princess Remembers: The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur by Gayatri Devi
The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah
Pax Britannica: Climax of an Empire by Jan Morris
Anu: The Nomad Years by Shabnam Vasisht
Khairlanji: A Strange And Bitter Crop by Anand Teltumbde
Maharani by Diwan Jarmani Dass
Farewell The Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat by Jan Morris
India Unbound by Gurcharan Das
We Also Made History: Women in the Ambedkarite Movement by Urmila Pawar
The Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher
Maharaja: The lives
South India Under the Cholas by Y. Subbarayalu
Dalit Visions: The Anti Caste Movement And The Construction Of An Indian Identity
Ancient India by R.C. Majumdar
The Origins of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century by Geoffrey Samuel
The Madurai Sultanate: A Concise History by Sandeep Balakrishna
Borders and Boundaries: How Women Experienced the Partition of India by Ritu Menon
Women of the Raj: The Mothers
Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East by Gita Mehta
The Emergency: A Personal History by Coomi Kapoor
Plain Tales from the Raj by Charles Allen
The Rani of Jhansi: Gender
Art of Osian Temples by Asha Kalia
People Without History: India’s Muslim Ghettos by Jeremy Seabrook
The Golden Calm: An English Lady’s Life in Moghul Delhi by M.M. Kaye
A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport by Ramachandra Guha
Pilgrims Of The Stars by Dilip Kumar Roy
Dishonoured by History: Criminal Tribes and British Colonial Policy by Meena Radhakrishna
Rewriting History: Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai by Uma Chakravarti
The Raj by Lawrence James
MAHAD: The Making of the First Dalit Revolt by Anand Teltumbde
India’s Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India by Christophe Jaffrelot
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